June 8th

June 8, 2012

This past week has been amazing. I worked three days at the orphanage and two days at the clinic. Already I am starting to get attached to these kids. It’s hard to pick favorites but a couple of them have really stood out. Justin being one of them, Justin is a 14 year old orphan who I brilliant. He is probably the sweetest kid I have ever met. He is very polite and so so so smart. He loves my camera and glasses, so I let him hang on to both while I am there. Most of the pictures on my blog were actually taken by him. I say he’s brilliant because he is amazingly creative, this past week my glasses broke. He tried to give me my broken glasses at the end of the day, I told him he could hang on to them for the night and try to fix them if he wanted. I didn’t expect to see them the next day thinking he would throw them out, but, when I came back Justin had fixed them with a piece of wire he had found on the side of the road... genius. Because I love Justin I have made it my personal goal while I am here to help him with his English, reading, and math skills. The three days I was with him we read a few children’s books, performed basic math, and tried to have conversation both in English and Kinyarwanda. I have also spent some time TRYING to teach a kindergarten class.  Teaching kindergarten is very hard; I almost feel it’s more about containing them than teaching them, so much energy. Finally I resorted to puzzles so they would calm down.

I really enjoyed the orphanage but I don’t know how often I will get to go there since my placement is at the medical center. I do know they have a “clinic” at the orphanage that performs checkups and vaccinations; I might try to do that once a week.

Thursday I started at the clinic, and in a way I already feel like one of the staff members. I was really nervous going my first day because the last time I went there is when I started having trouble breathing. This time I took a bus to the stop off the main road and then hiked into the clinic. It’s probably about a 2.5- 3 miles hike to the clinic from the main road. Once I got there I was immediately put to work. The first day I took several blood samples from patient being tested for HIV, as well as prenatal testing. That was a shocker because the way they take blood here is so old school I have never practice this way. But that didn’t matter; I figured it out and was successful at taking blood from over 20 patients, all of them I got with the first stick… I am VERY proud of myself. The second thing I did was perform prenatal checkups measure the mom’s belly, the baby’s position and how they are developing… keep in mind before Thursday I knew nothing about this. Lastly I went to the maternity ward where the nurse asked if I would be willing to spend the night to deliver babies. That was a surprise, first of all because I am in no way qualified to deliver a child and second I have actually never seen a natural birth. I will have to see how the next week turns out before I start making commitments like that! These people give me too much credit, they think I am way smarter than I really am, already they are calling me Dr. Bre.